There’s something deliciously unsettling about realizing your memories might be wrong. Sarah Langan’s Pam Kowolski Is a Monster! turns that unease into a full-blown psychological and supernatural meltdown. This novella barrels through themes of memory, trauma, and rivalry with the manic energy of an apocalypse that might already be happening — or might only be in the mind of its unraveling narrator.
Janet Chow’s life didn’t exactly pan out the way her classmates might have predicted back at Sewanhaka High. Once destined for greatness, she’s now middle-aged, adrift, and licking the wounds of a career in journalism that has long since crashed and burned. Then she spots her old nemesis — Pam Kowolski, the girl she used to despise — who has somehow transformed into “Madame Pamela,” America’s psychic sweetheart and doomsday influencer. Pam is rich, beautiful, and adored, while Janet is invisible. Convinced that Pam’s fame is built on lies, Janet sets out to expose her as a fraud. But digging into Pam’s past also means unearthing the pieces of her own history that she’s conveniently buried — and the deeper she digs, the more she starts to question what’s real, what’s remembered, and what’s imagined.
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Write on the World 